Bookbinding Demonstration – Glue Bound Paperback

During a holiday this summer I made a simple bookbinding jig to help speed up my efforts when creating paperback books (you can read more about the bookbinding jig in this article.)

The bookbinding jig worked extremely well (I’ve made 7 books so far) and I have been having great success using it to make books with glue bindings. So, I decided to put together this quick video to demonstrate the process I use.

The video is edited slightly, but the whole process shown only took about 15 minutes from start to finish and much of the time cut out was waiting for the glue to setup enough to remove it from the jig.If you enjoy this demonstration, please bookmark the page and share it with others.

17 Comments

I really enjoyed your video and instructions. I finally went out and made my first woodworking project ever!! – entirely out of scrap lumber. My first didn’t turn out to well, but my second looks great. I finished it today. I read your post about children’s books and your little one. My six year old started telling me a story in the car about two brave men – Truthful and Lieless. It was very interesting. I started writing it down for him and will type up his “first story” and print it out for him. You never know, one day we may have to e-mail you about how you publish and print your work!
Thanks again for the jig intructions. We print out a lot of classics that are not copyrighted for our homeschool. 3- ring binders were getting expensive as well as inefficient!

Hi, I was wondering if you thought this sort of binding would work for card stock as well. The problem I’m having is that the Kinko’s near me only carries heavy card stock, not text stock. I’m thinking of having them score the sheets (11×17″) and fold them so I’d have pages of 8.5×11″”, which I would then cut down to 8.5×8.5″. I’d love to sew the binding but think it will be too stiff. Any thought if the glue binding would be strong enough for something like 80lb card stock?

This is a great demonstration. I’ve built several book binding jigs based on your designs–even one that binds 3 at a time. This helped me start a small publishing operation; we’ve released just recently released an anthology of poetry.

I’d just like to thank you for taking the time to do all of this.

I do have a question, though:

How do the 5 minute d-epoxy books hold up over time? I’ve had a couple complaints about the binding coming loose from repeated use.

What’s the best glue to use?

and finally:

we use two relatively cheap paper slicers. The book is about 22 11×8.5 pages long. Oftentimes, the pages turn out uneven.

Hi. I’ve been trying to get a book selfpublished for awhile now. Too much money. I watch your video clips. Very interesting. Could you maybe sent me the measurements and drawings of the Bookbinder. I would like to make my own.

Hello Tom.
I recently had my first book published and although it is out there, i am very disatisfied with my publishing agents. I have four or five other books which I intend to publish myself, using the self same methods that you have used. (thanks to many, many unselfish writers who have shared their experiences!) Would you mind if I copy your idea of gifting? Music , or maybe simply chocolate and a sachet of cocoa?

I assume you are referring to the glue application step. I don’t clamp the pages down very tight at first because I want the glue to work around the edges of the paper for a better bond. After application, I tighten down the press before joining the cover to the spine.

I find that a good neoprene contact cement provides a strong flexible bond.

About Us

This all started with a single blog post about bookbinding. The simple approach described for glue bindings inspired me to try it myself. I documented my own efforts and those articles became the foundation of DIYBookBinding.com.

Since then, I’ve spent many more hours and dollars studying the subject and experimenting with glues and techniques. The content here is a result of that research. This little bookbinding hobby has grown into a fairly comprehensive collection of information on the subject of self-publishing.